Week 6 Quick Reads

My first thought was Eddie George, because look at Eddie George. I'm guessing that's not correct, though.

martavis Bryant . not sure if that is real nickanem or oen created by internet folk

In this game the Vikings had over -100 dyar from their #1 RB and #1 WR combined, -50 and -51 respectively.

Well, at least they had balance.

Diggs played a lot better (don't know his number, not on top 5) but not sure if part of that was who they had covering each (e.g., was Wallace drawing the Chief's top cover corner?)

In Wallace's defense a lot of his failed targets were uncatchable. Not sure all that dyar should be on him....

I struggled to believe that any line starting Marshall Newhouse could be effective. And last night reminded me why I held that belief.

I'd be inclined to give Eli somewhat of a pass for last night. As you say, his O-Line was overwhelmed, but also his top two targets hadn't practiced all week and were evidently far below full speed. That cancelled out the Giants clearest matchup advantage and made for a very difficult night.

>It wasn't even really the receiver's fault, just a great play by the defender.

It WAS a great play by the defender(and as mentioned below, could have been a better throw), but that wasn't Donnell's only play that game where he left completions on the field with mediocre efforts on the ball. Eli has always been great at working with his TEs, but over the years the Giants have let the position atrophy from Pro Bowler in Shockey to solid players like Boss and Bennett to the Myers/Ballard/Fells/Donnell JAG parade.

The crooked pinky effect.

Much as I loved Mike Adams's play (he came in with the shoulder first but kept his eye and eventually hands on the ball for the pick six) I thought Ryans's (all these damn guys with esses ending their names!) play was much more impressive--if the receiver was not there Ryans probably can't even get a finger on the ball, and if he wasn't there the TE has a catch (whereas Edelman would never have completed that catch). Ryans really had to rip it out like a dog fighting over a bone.

After the Brady pick, the WR probably felt "damn, I coulda had that one." while Eli's pick resulted in the TE thinking "Now I know how the serfs felt when the Cossacks stormed the village on a rape and pillage party."

And Tannehill's first. Funny, because I was reminded a bit of the throw Chemical mentioned Foles made to win the game against Arizona as an example of the throws T'hill never made. This was a similar throw into an almost inexistent window in front of the TE, who had two hands on the ball and somehow tipped it up to where the DB had an easy interception. If Cameron makes the catch you call it a great throw. Instead it's part of what made T'hill "kind of stink" for a while, in Vince's words. That's how it goes in this game.

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Who, me?

It was a combination of the officiating crew not calling holding against either O-line, Rivers getting the ball out IMMEDIATELY on most pass plays and when the Chargers did want to go downfield SD went max protect.

I am sure that on at least 75 percent of SD's pass plays the ball was out within 2 seconds. Rivers was killing GB with all manner of short passes

GB did hit Rivers 13 times but on a percentage basis that is still just ok.

It's not like this is exactly a Trent Dilfer/Dan Marino situation; you can make a solid argument either way for Rivers or Ben. I just did a PFR check, and their numbers are actually pretty shockingly close.

Rivers: 64.9%, 38772 yards, 264/127 TD/INT, 7.9 YPA.
Big Ben: 63.9%, 39969 yards, 255/133 TD/INT, 7.9 YPA.

Sure, there are a few other differences, like Roethlisberger having missed games due to injury while Rivers didn't, and the former having taken more sacks, but they really do parallel pretty darn well at least from a raw numbers perspective.

I agree with almost all of this, and want to add that Ben's played the Ravens defense 2 or 3 times every year, and I don't think Rivers has seen a defense of the same quality so often.

But I want to take issue with "with a changing cast of recievers (admittedly, often good players)"
These good receivers lose a lot of their shine when they move on to other teams. I'll just scroll up a bit to this week's Mike Wallace entry as Exhibit A, but its true for Nate Washington, ARE, Holmes, etc. The only guy who left and was still really good was Plex.

No, Eli is most definitely not 3rd. Romo is clearly 3rd, and arguably even 1st among this group. Eli is like a distant 5th clearly behind Palmer, and possibly Schaub. People look at the rings and forget that Eli has been in the top 10 less than half his career. He was bad his first four seasons, and has also been bad in one third of his seasons since then. He's amazing occasionally, but also really bad quite a lot of the time too.

Im curious about the other side of the ball. The stoppable force vs the easily moveable object

Ahhhhh I remember that game! Still haunts me.

I was at the Blues game that night; they were showing it on the Jumbotron. What an incredible comeback, and then Hakim muffs the punt. Oy.

The Blues scored later and, as they often do, they played "When the Saints Go Marching In" in celebration. Never heard such booing for a home team goal! :)

I look at those tables and am kind of surprised to see Luck's name four times on all-time rate stats tables after only three seasons, including his rookie year. And then I hear my Seattle neighbors regarding Russell Wilson (who is fantastic and a pleasure to watch) as vastly superior when he's only been asked to do about 2/3 as much (with a dominant run game). Or RG3's rookie year (also excellent) with Alfred Morris.

Luck is clearly being over-used and it's a wonder it's taken this long to get his first game-missing injury. Maybe Gore can bring some balance and save the kid from being an over-used piñata.

Man, is Gore fun to watch run, or what? After two years of TRich and a cast of brittle RBs, I feel myself getting disturbingly aroused by a punishing 7-yard gain.

The 5th round pick continues to surprise me, but I don't think moving on from Marshall to Jeffery and a fancy new 1st round receiver (assuming they were targeting him when they made the trade). It's hard to point to any games the Bears are losing because of lack of receiving talent even with all the injuries.

The Seahawks have never had a receiver with THREE straight 100-yard games.

Teams without a player with four straight 100-yard games (with the last to have 3):

Redskins (Santana Moss, 2005. Art Monk had six games with 100 yards in a seven-game stretch in 1985.)
Jaguars (Jimmy Smith, 2004)
Bills (Eric Moulds, 2000)
Ravens (Qadry Ismail, 1999)
Raiders (Tim Brown, 1999)
Bears (Jeff Graham, 1995)
Seahawks (fat Mike Williams the last to have two, 2010)

The Tennessee Titans have never had a player with four (Drew Bennett, 2004 the last to have three), but several Oilers did.

Ignoring the fact that he is a millionare, I feel bad for the guy, strictly in the context of his NFL legacy. He was easily a top 10 QB for multiple seasons in a row, which is quite an accomplishment. We should remember him as somebody who, while not anywhere near the HOF discussion, still had a nice career (like Matt Hasselbeck, Dave Krieg, Mark Brunell, etc). Instead, most of the public at large has forgotten all about that, because of his George Costanza-like "that guy didn't just get fired, he REALLY got fired", spectacular mushroom cloud flameout in 2013.